Rich Goes Quayle-Hunting Again - August 11, 2003

By

Clay Waters

August 11, 2003 - 7:00pm

Times Watch for
August 11, 2003

Rich Goes Quayle-Hunting Again

Times editor Frank Richs
Sunday Arts & Leisure column, And Now, the Queer Eye For Straight Marriage,"
devoted to the issue de jour, conjures up the spirit of Murphy Brown. After
criticizing social conservatives Sen. Rick Santorum, Bill Bennett and the Family
Research Council, Rich mocks those who argue that child-rearing requires male
and female parents. He says: Then there are those who in 1992 cheered Dan
Quayle's argument that TV's Murphy Brown was unfit to raise children; they must
now illogically argue that the single mothers they once vilified are preferable
to two-mom or two-dad households.

Is it really that
illogical of an argument?

For the rest of Frank Richs column on gay
marriage,
click here.

Gay Rights
|
Parenting |
Dan Quayle |
Frank Rich

Serious
Gap in WMD Coverage

Gregory Djerejian found a serious contrast in seriousness between the
Financial Times and the New York Times in their coverage of Iraqs weapons of
mass destruction.

First, heres how the FT
treats the issue: On Friday
the paper ran an op-ed
on Iraqs WMD program coauthored by Curt Mileikowsky, former head of Asea's
nuclear power division and Evelyn Sokolowski, former head of the joint analysis
group for Sweden's nuclear utilities. They note concern over Husseins WMD
program: If the US had yielded to UN pressure to give [U.N. inspectors] more
time, it is unlikely the inspectors would have found significant WMD. The troop
concentrations around Iraq would have been dispersed and the pressure on Mr
Hussein to co-operate would have diminished accordingly. Ultimately economic
sanctions would have been lifted -and a rehabilitated Mr Hussein could have
resumed his quest for WMD. That would have been disastrous for global security.

The New York Times Friday
also ran an op-ed on Iraqs WMD program. For their view, they turned
tocomedian-turned-novelist Steve Martin. Martin, whose WMD expertise goes
modestly unremarked, uses the whole thing as comic relief: So if you're
asking me did Iraq have weapons of mass destruction, I'm saying, well, it all
depends on what you mean by have. See, I can have something without actually
having it. I can have a cold, but I don't own the cold, nor do I harbor it.
Really, when you think about it, the cold has me, or even more precisely, the
cold has passed through me.

Two stories on Californias surreal governors race
attempt to make a more appealing candidate out of Arianna Huffington, the most
popular liberal running.

When candidates Bill Simon
and Arianna Huffington filed their election papers, the Times saw only one
millionaire, a Republican. Dean Murphy and Charlie LeDuff write: The first
candidate to arrive in Norwalk came well before Mr. Schwarzenegger, the
columnist Arianna Huffington or Bill Simon Jr., the millionaire Republican who
lost to Mr. Davis in last November's election, they write on Sunday. Yet
Huffington is the former wife of wealthy former Republican Congressman Michael
Huffington and currently resides in a
9000-square-foot house in posh Brentwood.) They also observe: Ms.
Huffington, the one-time darling of the Gingrich revolution turned populist
crusader, is engaging in a stalking campaign against Mr. Schwarzenegger in an
effort to draw out the actor's positions on the issues. (The clause describing
Huffingtons politics is strangely absent from some editions of the paper)

Mondays story by LeDuff
and Alan Feuer labels Huffington not as a liberal but as a progressive,
whatever that means: And then there is Arianna Huffington, who has taken to
tailing Mr. Schwarzenegger at news events to draw him out and bask in his glow.
She has joined [Sen. Dianne] Feinstein and other progressives in demanding an
end to bare-knuckle politics. She has also pledged to cap her campaign spending
at $10 million and promised not to run negative advertisements or conduct
opinion polls. I think the people of California are sick of demolition
derbies, she said on This Week.

Speaking of demolition
derbies, Huffington seems to dislike SUVs, judging by her co-founding of The
Detroit Project,
an
advocacy campaign that likens driving SUVs to supporting terrorism. Yet
according to the Times, such stands (and
interviews) attacking the outrageous fiscal irresponsibility that Bush and
his cronies have unleashed on America merely make Huffington populist and
progressive. Would it kill the paper to call the liberal Huffington liberal?

For the rest of LeDuff and Murphys Sunday story on
California,
click here.

For the rest of LeDuff and Feuer Monday story on
California,
click here.

California to Ban Chemicals Used as Flame
Retardants, the headline to Sundays story from environmental reporter Jennifer
Lee, is innocuous enough. But the subhead tells a more ominous tale: Agent Tied
to Learning Disorders in Children.

One reads on, to find that
Lees actual story makes no such claim. On California Gov. Gray Davis plan to
ban polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs,) Lee writes: California will become
the first state to ban the chemicals, which are suspected of contributing to
learning disorders, attention deficit and hyperactivity in children.The levels
in some American women and babies are close to levels harmful to newborn
mice.Tests on mice at Uppsala University in Sweden show that the chemicals can
harm their brains in ways similar to the harm from PCB's.

Thats as far as Lee gets
as far as evidence of harm to children. In fact, she admits No studies of the
effect of the chemicals on human health have been published, but researchers are
extrapolating their concern from animal studies and knowledge about how PCB's
harm humans.

PBDEs could indeed be
tied to learning disorders in children (though the embattled Davis sudden
concern encourages cynicism on the matter). But Lees story offers no evidence
of the assertions made by the Times headline writers.

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